Electric Life Power Window Kit - Quit Being Cranky

We add a power window kit to our '69 Camaro

Can you remember back in the day when things like power windows and door locks were actually optional? And very few cars were equipped with them? We do and if you own a pre-'80s Chevrolet, then you do as well. Muscle cars with power windows are pretty rare by most standards. It used to be converting a crank window car to power was kind of a pain. You had to find used factory stuff or go with some sort of odd cable system that wasn't quite as good as the factory stuff.

Fortunately, those issues are now a thing of the past, and the manual-to-power conversion is easier than ever. Thanks to the folks at Electric-Life, you can convert your classic Chevy to power windows in a few hours without having to cut the car up. The company makes power window regulators that are of OE quality and design. In most cases they are made to bolt right into the door without the need of drilling new mounting holes. These regulators are the scissor-type, and are identical to most OE applications. This gives the windows a smooth operation and years of service life.

On top of the power regulators, Electric-Life also makes a full selection of switches for any type of build. They have everything from the stock rocker-style all the way to billet illuminated switches. They even have options for the guys who want the car to look factory with these killer switches that use the factory window crank handle.

Our wiring guy, Raymond "Lucky" Costa, from Mobile Tech called us about this kick-ass '69 Camaro one of his customers was building. He was just getting ready to install the Electric-Life power window conversion on it so we decided to go over and follow along. Since this car is in the mid-build phase, we won't be finishing the job completely in the way the switch mounting and door panel install, but we will still give you all the information you need to decide if you want to convert your car to power.

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Electric Life Power Window Kit - Quit Being Cranky

Here are the Electric-Life components going into this resto-mod '69 Camaro. There is a GM89-6869-K kit for the front and GM104-6769-K kit for the rear. In the black box is a four-window billet switch kit (PN 99022) with harness to make the windows move after they're installed. The owner of the car wants to build a custom center console and put the switches there, so the illuminated billet switches will be the perfect choice. If you want a more stock appearing switch or something different, make sure to see the switch sidebar at the end of this story.

Here are the Electric-Life components going into this resto-mod '69 Camaro. There is a GM89-6869-K kit for the front and GM104-6769-K kit for the rear. In the black box is a four-window billet switch kit (PN 99022) with harness to make the windows move after they're installed. The owner of the car wants to build a custom center console and put the switches there, so the illuminated billet switches will be the perfect choice. If you want a more stock appearing switch or something different, make sure to see the switch sidebar at the end of this story.

1 The car we are working on has empty doors so we don't need to tear anything down to start the job. If you are working with a complete car, you'll need to tear the door down far enough to get the regulator out. The first thing we're drilling is the hole in the doorjamb so the wires can pass through. One nice thing is there are two dimples stamped in the car, one on the door and one on the body, that let you know right where to drill.

2 Lucky used a step drill to make the hole in the door and in the body.

3 After deburring the hole, Lucky installed the "Z" loom (PN 4301-70-011) into the holes. This will protect the wires from the elements and also make the installation look complete and professional.

4 Now the regulator could be readied for installation. The '69 Camaro has an oddity to it. You can't slide the glass onto the sliders of the regulators because the hardware gets in the way. Because of this, both tracks need to be slipped over the slides/rollers on the regulator. Here the lower track is going on.

5 Here we have the smaller upper track going on the slides. You also want to make sure the tracks slide smoothly on the slides without binding or hard spots. If there are, look at the track for dents or dings and fix them. You don't want the slides binding, as it will slow down the operation of the glass and also put undue load on the motors.

6 The regulator has three studs sticking off of it that will pop through three existing holes in the door, and is held on with the provided nuts.

7 Now the glass is fed into the door and the lower track is bolted to it with all this special hardware. The smaller upper track is also bolted to the door.

8 Once it's all loosely bolted together, Lucky uses a 12-volt battery from a cordless drill to temporarily power up the regulator and check the operation. The glass will still need to be adjusted, but everything is working great so he moved onto the rear.

9 The rear regulator doesn't need any tracks added to it like the front, so it can simply slip into the rear quarter.

10 There are a lot of holes in the rear quarter that make finding the proper mounting location a bit of a pain. The instructions have a nice big picture that helps you figure out it goes pretty low in the quarter as shown.

11 Now the glass is fed into the quarter and the lower track is slipped over the slide on the regulator. Then the regulator is bolted to the body.

12 The only piece from the old stuff we needed on the rear portion was this upper stop that prevents the window from rolling up too high. This was the stage that Lucky adjusted all the glass properly. This procedure is a story in itself, so look for that in a future issue, but for now we are moving on.

13 The four-window billet switch kit (PN 99022) comes with the Illuminated switches and wiring harness for simple installation. These can also be ordered in a black anodized finish for a stealthy look.

14 The switch kit comes with a pre-made harness for vehicles without provisions in the wiring for power windows. Electric-Life has a fuse holder wired into the harness to protect the components. This car has an American Autowire harness in it that has a power window circuit, so Lucky removed that portion of the harness and used these wires from the car's harness to power the motors.

15 Lucky connects the wires to the pigtails on the motors with a soldered joint that is covered with shrink tube. These wires can get wet since the seals on a '69 Camaro are not perfect, so he prefers not to use butt connectors.

16 Just to give you an idea of how it will look with no handles showing, we temporarily installed the new door panel kit from Classic Industries. These door panels come fully assembled and feature all the correct chrome beading and pleats. Since these are new components the holes are not punched for the window crank so the owner can put the switch panel in the center console without having any evidence of past cranks.

17 To finish the four-switch bank, a few terminals need to be installed. The terminals are provided by Electric-Life and require a double crimp.

18 Then the freshly crimped wires can be fed into the plugs on the back of the switch. The switches come with a great wire diagram, so we don't need to rehash it here.

19 The one set of wires that make this switch different than others is the illumination wires. These can be wired to come on with either the ignition or the headlights. Since this is a hard top car Lucky decided to wire them to the ignition so if the key is on the lights are on. Once the custom console is constructed, the switch can simply be dropped into place. That completes the install on this car and we can report the windows function as if the factory built it that way. The glass comes up smooth and the motors are nice and quiet.

Switch Options For you guys who do not want to buy new door panels, Electric-Life still has you covered. They make the factory-style GM rocker switches (second from left) that are bigger than the window crank hole so it will cover it. They also make these killer Crank Switches (far left) that turn the window crank handle into the up and down switch. On the right we have switches similar to what we installed except these are singles and the one on the right has the optional black anodized finish. Lastly, on the far left we have a simple two-piece plug that is made to fill the left over window crank hole.